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Gods, she remembered changing his diaper.
She’d always been too scared he would leak on whatever new gadget lurked in her pocket to manage the task with any degree of competency, but when had he gotten old enough for his first season?
Oracle’s light! Little Shiloh might be a father soon.
When her palm’s alarm vibrated discreetly in her pocket, Lila gave Shiloh and her father one last hug and dashed away, winding through the laughing and squealing and crying children. She drove through Sunday afternoon traffic to the Randolph estate, parking in the family’s garage before marching down Villanueva Lane toward the security office. The twelve-story steel and glass tower rose high above the mansions in the southern part of the compound. It stretched like a nest of glass and steel, all arcs and curves, a gem cleaned and polished.
Lila loved the building, which was a good thing, since she spent most of her time there. It had been designed as the home of the Randolph militia, housing the barracks, cafeteria, training facilities, and department offices, as well as the private apartments of its senior officers.
Including her private apartment, if her mother had allowed her to sleep there.
She pulled open the metal front door, sculpted into the Randolph coat of arms, her boots clicking on the white tiles underneath a crisscross of steel arches. Since she hadn’t worn her militia uniform, it felt too odd for her to take the staircase. Instead, she broke for the glass elevators, which would offer her a peek into every department on every floor, for the walls had also been made of glass.
Lila stopped as soon as the doors opened.
Several dozen blown-up pictures of her leaping across the LeBeau’s ballroom had been taped along the walls of the car, even worse pictures than her father had saved on his palm. Our Hero had been scrawled across the top of each one, and around the edges of the posters, semicircles within semicircles had been drawn. A pert little dot sat at the center.
Thinly disguised breasts.
At least no one had put up pictures of that.
The same treatment had been given to the other three elevators. Surrendering to the inevitable, Lila stepped into the nearest car and slid her elevator key into the slot. She pushed the button for the twelfth floor, waving away strips of red silk and ribbon that dangled in her face from the ceiling. Luckily, very few people could access her office and apartment without the proper key. She’d not find any posters or dangly ribbons there.
As the car rose slowly through the building, everyone inside rushed the stair rails around the middle of the building, crowding in groups to watch her ride up in the glass-paneled elevator, all laughing as their handiwork floated past, some clapping, some hooting, some hollering. Many took pictures on their palm and patted one another on their backs for a job well done. She waved, playing the good sport until she finally passed into the private floors of the building. Then she sank against the wall and passed into welcome darkness.
She’d never noticed how slowly the elevator moved.
Once she hit the top, she entered her apartment, styled exactly the same as her room in the great house: gray and white walls, black furniture, little flares of Randolph crimson. She quickly changed into workout clothes before descending in the elevator again.
Luckily, few people noticed her descent.
She stalked out of the elevator into the basement training facility and grabbed a bottle of water from the front desk before walking toward the track. She often did her best thinking as she raced around the outer ring, hopping over foam-covered fire hydrants, racing up ramps, and scrambling over walls to jump to the next mock roof. She had her people change it up every week, to keep her fresh, to keep her people fresh too. Today, it was more challenging than usual, and she found herself falling and landing on the thick mats below more than once, pulling at her stitches as she hit the ground and slapped the padding.
Lila winced and pulled off one of her gloves, checking her hands for blood. Perhaps it wasn’t so challenging. Perhaps she was just off since she couldn’t grab at the terrain for balance. Or perhaps she just had a great deal on her mind. The botched assassination, Mr. Schulte’s death, Reaper, Reaper’s partner, Dixon, Oskar, the oracles, her father, Tristan, Alex, Pax, perhaps even Dubois.
She kicked a foam-covered streetlight and pulled herself off the mat, finally giving up. Instead, she ventured into the weight room, choosing to keep her feet on the floor.
Commander Sutton found her an hour later while she prepped for a last set of leg presses, entering the room with all the elegance of Chairwoman Masson. Lila said nothing as the commander pulled up a bench and sat down, her gray hair wrapped in a twist, her eyes dropping to Lila’s jaw. “You sweated half your concealer off.”
“How’d you know where I was?” Lila grunted as she straightened her legs and lifted the weight.
“Tim called me. Said you were falling so much you must be enjoying it. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” The shrewd, wrinkled commander stared at her knowingly.
Lila straightened her legs again. “There’s nothing to tell. By the way, thanks for taking the commanders’ meeting this morning.”
“That’s what I’m here for. One of these days you’ll realize that I make a good enough chief for you to retire early.”
“Anything come up that I should know about?”
“Nothing the other commanders and I couldn’t handle. It’s just another boring day on the Randolph compounds. If you don’t stir up something soon, I’ll have to go home to the Beast for dinner.”
Lila couldn’t help but chuckle at her old partner. She’d heard earful after earful about the Beast while they patrolled the compound over the years. “He’s your husband, commander. Shouldn’t you want to go home to him?”
“We work better when we don’t see one another. When we’re together, we’re like two alley cats thrown into the same dumpster.”
“Horny alley cats. How many kids do you have again?”
The woman locked the weight as soon as Lila straightened her legs.
